3 ms·

The Moral History of Air-Conditioning

7 points by ALee 8y ago

gargravarr 8y ago
It's interesting reading this as a European - although offices and large public buildings in the UK are air conditioned, homes aren't. Our climate is often humid but even in peak summer, few of us even think of seeking shelter in front of an air conditioner. The only place it's common to find one is in a car, and even those are seldom used because the energy use is immediately visible on fuel consumption. I agree with the amount of energy used by the machines - humans are remarkably willing to expend huge amounts of resources for what many would view as pathetic personal comfort. On the other hand, ACs allow us to do work around the world in climates where we would end up sweating in seconds and needing breaks every few minutes. Of course, in other places, it's taken to excess - in Dubai, for example, AC and related technologies allowed the construction of an indoor ski resort. I cannot imagine how much power that attraction consumes to keep the desert heat out. The one saving grace is that an AC is actually quite an efficient machine. Per unit of input energy, it is able to move multiple units of thermal energy between its 'hot' and 'cold' zones. ACs can even make efficient heaters by working in reverse, pulling heat in from outside rather than burning fuels or using electrical resistance, and transferring more heat than the power input of a heater. The ability to move heat around is a very useful engineering accomplishment. However, the article does point out the many downsides. Not only is the energy consumed contributing to climate change, but I can imagine that with many, many devices pumping heat out of buildings into the air, they're actually heating the local air by a small percent and probably incentivising those nearby to run their own ACs. A nice little vicious spiral. Though mentioning the dangerous environmental impact of the older generation of refrigerants, the article doesn't touch on a key breakthrough in recent years - using carbon dioxide itself as the working fluid. This is a really neat idea and has a two-pronged approach - not only is the gas not immediately harmful should it leak (at least compared to other refrigerants), but in building ACs that use it, CO2 could be captured from the air itself and isolated. Obviously in small quantities, but when considering how many AC units are in use globally, there's likely many, many tonnes of refrigerant in use. Replace all that with CO2 and it could make a real different to the planet.

7 points by ALee 8y ago

It's interesting reading this as a European - although offices and large public buildings in the UK are air conditioned, homes aren't. Our climate is often humid but even in peak summer, few of us even think of seeking shelter in front of an air conditioner. The only place it's common to find one is in a car, and even those are seldom used because the energy use is immediately visible on fuel consumption. I agree with the amount of energy used by the machines - humans are remarkably willing to expend huge amounts of resources for what many would view as pathetic personal comfort. On the other hand, ACs allow us to do work around the world in climates where we would end up sweating in seconds and needing breaks every few minutes. Of course, in other places, it's taken to excess - in Dubai, for example, AC and related technologies allowed the construction of an indoor ski resort. I cannot imagine how much power that attraction consumes to keep the desert heat out. The one saving grace is that an AC is actually quite an efficient machine. Per unit of input energy, it is able to move multiple units of thermal energy between its 'hot' and 'cold' zones. ACs can even make efficient heaters by working in reverse, pulling heat in from outside rather than burning fuels or using electrical resistance, and transferring more heat than the power input of a heater. The ability to move heat around is a very useful engineering accomplishment. However, the article does point out the many downsides. Not only is the energy consumed contributing to climate change, but I can imagine that with many, many devices pumping heat out of buildings into the air, they're actually heating the local air by a small percent and probably incentivising those nearby to run their own ACs. A nice little vicious spiral. Though mentioning the dangerous environmental impact of the older generation of refrigerants, the article doesn't touch on a key breakthrough in recent years - using carbon dioxide itself as the working fluid. This is a really neat idea and has a two-pronged approach - not only is the gas not immediately harmful should it leak (at least compared to other refrigerants), but in building ACs that use it, CO2 could be captured from the air itself and isolated. Obviously in small quantities, but when considering how many AC units are in use globally, there's likely many, many tonnes of refrigerant in use. Replace all that with CO2 and it could make a real different to the planet.